Being an electrical engineer, I inspected one of these cables to see what they're made of. They are total garbage! The inner concductors are twisted pair (from what I can tell), with a thick outer jacket to make the cable look substantial (fat, like you're getting something for your money). I noticed the outer jacket says balanced. I'm sorry, but RCA audio interconnects are not a balanced interface. This is wrong!

A balanced interface means that twisted pair wires are used and the receiving amplifier is differential. Differential amps cancel out common mode noise (noise on both wires). This is a great low-noise interface (commonly used for studio quality microphones, etc). It works best when accompanied by an outer shield (for lowest possible noise). It is available on some high end home equipment.

But standard RCA connections are NOT balanced!

RCA interconnects generally use a grounded shield on the outer connector side. If you use twisted pair on an RCA interconnect you ground out one of the wires. Since the ground wire is not a heavy (low impedance) braided shield, you have a higher impedance connection which could make noise figures worse. This is bad for audio interconnects as the pre-amplified signal level is small to begin with (resulting in low signal-to-noise ratio).

BTW, I don't mean to flame anyone directly, but those who think they can hear differences in sound between audio patch cables are smoking something. It's all in your head!

Note: professional sound studios do not use this crap! If there were some validity to it, they would.

I thought everyone was being a bit harsh here but my ears don't lie. There was zero depth to the music (two-dimensional, no soundstage at all) and way too bright. Extreme listener fatigue with any quality speaker. I'v never given a 1 for any product ever until now. Stay away! Buy Audioquest if on a budget; Z-cable or Tara Labs if not.

WHat the hell was I thinking ... I think sometimes we as consumers tend to convince ourselves that we actually like a product esp when we feel like we don't really feel like we got our money's worth.. This cable produced nothing but ovvver exagerrated highs with no midrange..

My ears have matured dont get this interconnect for your HT setup you will regret it.

These cables broke on me about a month into using them. Granted I plug, unplug, replug etc multiple times per day. I inspected the soldering and cable quality of the cables to see exactly how these cables could break when my others don't.

Answer is poor soldering job, and really thin wires used. This cable does not have what it takes to withstand above normal wear and tear. It might be fine if you intend to just plug it in and use it like that indefinitely.

The replacement series is built at least 10 times more robust. Don't buy these cables! You will regret it.

I've resoldered them myself and I did a much better job of it. So far they are holding up.